Google Malaysia has begun to provide daily safety tips in conjunction with the upcoming Safer Internet Day (SID) 2024. The company took it slightly further though by stretching the online safety awareness campaign from just one day to a full month.
Google Malaysia brings Safer Internet Month to X
Originally begun as a regional project in Europe back in 2004, SID is now a global event happening every February. This year’s edition has been scheduled to take place tomorrow, 6 February.
Interestingly enough, Google Malaysia has decided to run its SID activities not on its platform but through the popular social media network, X (formerly known as Twitter). The company which has said that security is the cornerstone of its product strategy, has already begun sharing online safety tips through X since 1 February in English and Bahasa Malaysia.
The campaign arrives at a rather interesting time
The timing of Google Malaysia’s Safer Internet Month campaign is rather exquisite as we have witnessed quite several high-profile cybersecurity incidents recently. Just earlier today, local telco Maxis and online learning platform YouTutor were put under the spotlight after they were hit by the international hacker group R00TK1T.
Before that, the group also made network solutions provider and integrator Aminia as the first victim of its public cyberattack campaign against Malaysia. In addition to that, the AI Untuk Rakyat platform was taken offline for a few hours after experiencing symptoms of a registration flooding attack while TM has also found itself in hot water after a database seller claimed to have the company’s “entire customer data” and put it up for sale online.
On another hand, scam cases in Malaysia have also become more rampant as the country gets more digitalised than ever. In 2023, the National Scam Response Centre recorded more than 33,000 cases with losses of RM1.34 billion according to Deputy Communications Minister, Teo Nie Ching.